Please Read-Long Post But worthwhile

This is a discussion on Please Read-Long Post But worthwhile within the General Firearm Discussion forums, part of the Main Category category; This could happen, read all of this before passing it on
You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside ...

The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects.

After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time.

The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.

A few months later, you go to trial.

The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted.

When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you..

Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man.

It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges.

The judge sentences you to life in prison.

This case really happened.

On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second.

In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term..

How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire?

It started with the Pistols Act of 1903.

This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.
The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except shotguns..

Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns.

Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerford mass shooting in 1987.Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw.

When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead.

The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions.
(The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)

Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland ,
Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school.

For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals.
Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners.
Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns.
The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearms
still owned by private citizens.

During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism.
Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened,
claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun.

Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.

Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying,
"We cannot have people take the law into their own hands."

All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times,
and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs
who had no fear of the consequences.
Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection
trashed or stolen by burglars.

When the Dunblane Inquiry ended,
citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities.

Being good British subjects,
most people obeyed the law.
The few who didn't were visited by police
and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply.

Police later bragged that they'd taken
nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.

How did the authorities know who had handguns?
The guns had been registered and licensed.
Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?

WAKE UP AMERICA;
THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.

"...It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.."
--Samuel Adams

There's a lot more to this story. For one, Mr. Martin did not report the shooting. Second, he only served 3 years.

Yes, he used a pump shotgun. And he shot them as they fled. That won't fly in the U.S. either. And then there was that little thing about shooting at a passing car that led to him losing his gun permit 6 years earlier.

"Barras was shot in the back and died at the scene, while Fearon was shot in the leg and recovered after treatment in hospital."

"Martin had been burgled so many times that he had set up an elaborate network of look-out ladders and traps, even removing a stair to hinder intruders."

"But it emerged the pair had been shot as they tried to flee through a window."

"Jurors also heard that Martin had a history of gun-related misbehaviour, including firing upon a car six years before - an incident which led to his shotgun certificate being revoked."

"He began an appeal immediately. In court he argued he had suffered from a paranoid personality disorder which diminished his responsibility. His barrister told the court Martin had suffered sexual abuse as a child and "considered himself a boy of about ten"."

"October 30, 2001
Tony Martin's conviction is reduced to manslaughter. His setenced was reduced to five years — meaning he will be eligible for parole in a year.

Freedom
Tony Martin was released from custody on July 28, 2003. A Prison Service spokesman said he was released from an undisclosed location, adding: “He is now a free man.”
Martin served two-thirds of a five-year jail term for shooting dead teenage burglar Fred Barras and wounding his accomplice Brendan Fearon during a raid at his isolated farmhouse at Emneth Hungate, near Wisbech in August 1999."

See, it's mumbo jumbo like that and skinny little lizards like you thinking they the last dragon that gives Kung Fu a bad name.http://www.gunrightsmedia.com/ Internet forum dedicated to second amendment

See, it's mumbo jumbo like that and skinny little lizards like you thinking they the last dragon that gives Kung Fu a bad name.http://www.gunrightsmedia.com/ Internet forum dedicated to second amendment

Treo, as much as the OP makes a compelling case for the realities of what gun control, which i believe is a very real concern in our country today, will do to society, your added information puts a completely different light on the particular incident. Thank you for posting.

What Treo said - he did a lot of stuff that would get him in trouble anywhere. The "what if" story in the OP was a long way from accurate. The perps weren't entering his bedroom with weapons raised, etc., etc.

I certainly support his right to defend himself and his home, and I'm quick to decry the UK's gun laws, but Mr. Martin screwed up.

Yep... Martin screwed up... but that doesn't change the underlying message in the story. Liberal politicians slowly and deliberately whittled away at the gun rights of the citizens of England. It took YEARS and YEARS but the government won!

As of 2007, there were approximately 270,000,000 (270 million) guns in the hands of private citizens in America (gunpolicy.org: Karp, Aaron.2007.‘Completing the Count: Civilian firearms.’ Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,27 August. (Q4).

270,000,000 guns equals nearly one gun per every citizen in the country. 1 out of every 4 civilians in the U.S. owns guns. The average gun owner owns 4 guns. I believe a civil war would erupt if our government attempted to confiscate our firearms. Civilians own more guns than the military and police combined... and a great number of the military and the police would stand on the side of the gun owner. But the government isn't going to try to confiscate our guns...

The government is just going to keep whittling away at our rights. Timeframes are not the issue... as evidenced in England. Only the goal of total disarmament matters. Unless our voice is heard - loud, clear, lucid, united - our rights will always be under constant attack. Our founding fathers saw and acknowledged this when they added the Second Amendment; however, the prevailing political winds are blowing us back to the european way of thinking. Just ask NATO...